confounded
part of speech
adjective; past form of «confound» (confound, confounds, confounded, confounding)
meaning for a pupil
1) Confounded means very puzzled or confused. tree →
2) (old-fashioned, mild swearing) Confounded is used to show annoyance, meaning «annoying» or «wretched»: «this confounded rain». tree →
3) To confound someone is to surprise and confuse them; to confound a plan or prediction is to prove it wrong. tree →
4) To confound two things is to mix them up and think one is the other. tree →
sense in the lessons
In old books and The Wind in the Willows, gentlemen like Toad say «confounded» as a mild swear word: «that confounded policeman!». In science and news, a result can confound the experts, meaning it goes against what they expected. «Confound it!» was an old way of saying «Bother!».
examples
- The puzzle left everyone confounded. tree →
- «That confounded motor car!» shouted the old man. tree →
- The result confounded the experts. tree →
- Confound it, I've lost my keys! tree →
- Toad cursed the confounded washerwoman's dress. tree →
- The magician's trick confounded the audience. tree →
- "Kow" must not be confounded with the more prosaic animal with a "C." tree →
note
Regular verb. The mild-swearing sense is old-fashioned and only in old books or for fun today.
In the corpora
- They shall be ashamed, yea, confounded, all of them; they shall go in confusion together that are makers of idols.
- O Israel, that art saved by the LORD with an everlasting salvation; ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end.
- We are greatly confounded, because we have forsaken the land, because our dwellings have cast us out.'
- They were ashamed because they had hoped; they came thither, and were confounded.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «confounded» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.